Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
July 1, 2016
Michael J Hove, Johannes Stelzer, Till Nierhaus et al.
99 citations
Trance, an absorptive state with narrowed external awareness used by shamans for insight, was studied with fMRI in 15 experienced shamanic practitioners listening to rhythmic drumming. During trance, three brain regions—posterior cingulate cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and left insula/operculum—showed stronger hubs (higher eigenvector centrality). The posterior cingulate cortex, a default network hub for internal thought, coactivated with control-network regions, suggesting amplified internal neural streams. Auditory pathway seeds were less connected, indicating perceptual decoupling from repetitive drumming. This network reconfiguration may support extended internal thought and insight.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
July 3, 2026
Sébastien Czajko, Jelle Zorn, Oussama Abdoun et al.
Nondual meditation, specifically Open Presence (OP) practice, is associated with reduced bodily self susceptibility and increased large-scale integration of functional brain networks. Expert meditators with over 10,000 hours of practice showed lower global network eccentricity during OP compared to novices, particularly in dorsal attention, ventral attention, and frontoparietal networks, indicating greater integration. These neural patterns correlated positively with measures of bodily self illusion and negatively with cognitive defusion, a construct reflecting reduced self-grasping toward thoughts. The findings suggest that nondual awareness involves alterations in self-representation and large-scale functional brain integration.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
April 14, 2026
Meichao Zhang, Casey Paquola, Katya Krieger-Redwood et al.
The brain's default mode network (DMN) contains spatially distinct subregions that support different cognitive processes: some DMN areas are more active during perceptual decisions about faces, while others are more active during memory-guided decisions based on previously seen images. These subregions differ in their connectivity profiles—perception-related areas have receiver-like, afferent-biased connections across the heteromodal cortex, whereas memory-related areas have sender-like, efferent-biased connections with perceptual-motor and attentional systems beyond the DMN. This double dissociation, found across three fMRI datasets, suggests that DMN architecture is organized to flexibly support both external perception and internal memory-guided thought.
Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science
November 1, 2024
Sébastien Czajko, Jelle Zorn, Loïc Daumail et al.
Long-term Buddhist practitioners show distinct, enduring patterns of large-scale brain functional connectivity that are present whether they are meditating or resting, indicating that meditation expertise produces trait-like neural changes. Comparing 28 expert meditators with 47 matched novices, a machine-learning classifier successfully decoded expertise from brain scans taken during both meditative and nonmeditative states. The experts' brains exhibited greater integration across multiple networks, including those involved in attention, emotion, body awareness, and cognitive control. This increased integration correlated with a stronger ability to create psychological distance from thoughts and emotions, suggesting that meditation cultivates an embodied cognition that persists beyond formal practice.
PLoS One
August 25, 2016
Jonathan Smallwood, Theodoros Karapanagiotidis, Florence Ruby et al.
Spontaneous thoughts about absent people, places, or events arise from interactions within the default mode network (DMN). The posterior cingulate cortex, a core DMN region, integrates information from medial and lateral temporal lobe memory systems, which represent different aspects of knowledge. Individual differences in connectivity between temporal lobe regions and the DMN core predict the content and form of people's spontaneous thoughts. In a laboratory study, variations in functional connectivity from both medial and lateral temporal lobe regions were associated with different patterns of spontaneous thought, converging on an overlapping region in the posterior cingulate cortex. The posterior DMN core acts as a representational hub that integrates temporal lobe information, shaping spontaneous thought.